Black Gold Read online

  Table of Contents

  Meet the team

  By the Same Author

  HERE'S WHAT READERS THINK OF THE ALPHA FORCE SERIES:

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  ALPHA FORCE

  Prologue Collison Course

  Chapter 1 MAGIC WORLD

  Chapter 2 SHOCK

  Chapter 3 BLACK DEATH

  Chapter 4 DAMAGE CONTROL

  Chapter 5 BIRDS

  Chapter 6 THE TANKER

  Chapter 7 COVER-UP

  Chapter 8 SECRET SITE

  Chapter 9 THE CHAMBER

  Chapter 10 SHOWTIME

  Chapter 11 SHOOTER

  Chapter 12 ECO-WARRIORS

  Chapter 13 SUSPECTS

  Chapter 14 DOMESTIC CRISIS

  Chapter 15 TER HAAR

  Chapter 16 PUNISHMENT

  Chapter 17 MAYDAY

  Chapter 18 BLACK GOLD

  Chapter 19 IN THE LION'S DEN

  Chapter 20 STAND BY

  Chapter 21 BOWMAN

  Chapter 22 WAITING GAME

  Chapter 23 VICTORY

  Chapter 24 UNMASKED

  Chapter 25 HEALING

  Epilogue

  CHRIS RYAN'S TOP SAS TIPS FOR SAFETY AND SURVIVAL IN AND AROUND WATER

  Extract: Alpha Force: Survival SOMEWHERE IN THE INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO. . .

  About the Author

  CHRIS RYAN'S ALPHA FORCE - THE MISSIONS

  Meet the team:

  Alex – A quiet lad from Northumbria, Alex leads the team in survival skills. His dad is in the SAS and Alex is determined to follow in his footsteps, whatever it takes. He who dares . . .

  Li – Expert in martial arts and free-climbing, Li can get to grips with most situations . . .

  Paulo – The laid-back Argentinian is a mechanical genius, and with his medical skills can patch up injuries as well as motors . . .

  Hex – An ace hacker, rarely without his beloved palmtop, Hex is first rate at code-breaking and can bypass most security systems . . .

  Amber – Her top navigational skills mean the team are rarely lost. Rarely lost for words either, rich-girl Amber can show some serious attitude . . .

  With plenty of hard work and training, together they are Alpha Force – an elite squad dedicated to combating injustice throughout the world.

  In Black Gold, Alpha Force are in the Caribbean. They are there to improve their scuba diving skills, but a tanker disaster and an assassin's bullet soon mean they have a new mission to undertake . . .

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk/alphaforce

  Don't miss any of the missions in the

  Alpha Force series:

  SURVIVAL

  RAT-CATCHER

  DESERT PURSUIT

  HOSTAGE

  RED CENTRE

  HUNTED

  BLOOD MONEY

  FAULT LINE

  BLACK GOLD

  UNTOUCHABLE

  Also available by Chris Ryan, published by

  Arrow, for adult readers:

  STAND BY, STAND BY

  ZERO OPTION

  THE KREMLIN DEVICE

  TENTH MAN DOWN

  THE HIT LIST

  THE WATCHMAN

  LAND OF FIRE

  GREED

  Non-fiction:

  THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

  (the story of his experiences in the SAS and in Iraq)

  CHRIS RYAN'S SAS FITNESS BOOK

  CHRIS RYAN'S ULTIMATE SURVIVAL GUIDE

  HERE'S WHAT READERS

  THINK OF THE ALPHA

  FORCE SERIES:

  'Instantly readable, and I found it hard to put down. A cool read!'

  Chris

  'All the Alpha Force series are great. Keep writin', Chris, the world of books will be boring without you!'

  reader from Leeds

  'A really gripping read that is bound to keep your fingernails short'

  Andrew, from New Zealand

  'This book had me hooked from the start: it was really cool . . . it was so amazing I went and bought the next one in the series!'

  Lisa, from Wiltshire

  'To describe the book in one word – only one word suits the job, GREAT!'

  reader from Cornwall

  'From the first page you are drawn into the story and you can't put it down. I was excited by every word. This book is amazing! Chris Ryan builds suspense better than J. K. Rowling! This gripping novel keeps you reading for hours and is ideal for 11-16-year-old boys and girls alike'

  'Bookworm' Lizzi

  'I enjoyed this book because the characters were fun and the plot was interesting. The reader also finds out things that the characters do not know, so they act unpredictably creating unexpected twists and turns. I would recommend this book to teens because this is an action book where the heroes are teens themselves. It also contains the added bonus of Chris Ryan's top SAS tactics'

  Thomas, from Middlesex

  'I bought this book for my brother and ended up reading it myself!'

  Clare, from Plymouth

  'It keeps you wondering what will happen and has twists and turns all the way through'

  Luke, from Lincolnshire

  'I love these books and think they're really great. It's really great how Chris Ryan can write about such adult matters yet still make them young adults' books; they're a real inspiration! Rating: 10/10'

  Kelly, from Edinburgh

  Chris

  Ryan

  ALPHA FORCE

  BLACK GOLD

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781407049861

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  ALPHA FORCE : BLACK GOLD

  A RED FOX BOOK

  ISBN: 9781407049861

  Version 1.0

  First published in Great Britain by Red Fox,

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  This edition published 2005

  5 7 9 10 8 6 4

  Copyright © Chris Ryan, 2005

  The right of Chris Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

  Patents Act 1988.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Typeset in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Polmont, Stirlingshire

  Red Fox Books are published by Random House Children's Books,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA,

  A Random House Group Company

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited

  can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009

  www.kidsatrandomhouse.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Prologue

  COLLISION COURSE

  The oil tanker ploughed a furrow through the Caribbean Sea. Its deck was the length of three football pitches, the living quarters rising out of the stern like a four-storey building, topped by a cluster of radio tran
smitters, whirling radar masts – and a flag bearing the red insignia of ArBonCo Oil.

  Inside, at the very top of the tower, Tomas Amurao pushed open the door to the bridge and manoeuvred his mop and bucket inside. As he did so, he heard shouting. Two men – the captain and the second-in-command – were standing at the control station. The second-in-command was pointing to the radar screen, which showed a glowing dot touching the crosshairs of the screen. There was something out there, right in their path.

  Out of the window Amurao could see the sea, a long way down, and a gleaming white passenger cruiser gliding past. It was a big ship with four decks, one with a glittering turquoise square of swimming pool, but the tanker towered over it like a skyscraper.

  Amurao was Filipino and didn't understand the language the Dutch crewmen were speaking – but he couldn't mistake the meaning. They'd nearly hit the cruiser. How? He knew that there were numerous automatic systems to stop them colliding with other objects in the water.

  He began to mop the floor by the door. The shouting stopped, and it was then that he realized what was so odd.

  It was far too quiet.

  Usually the bridge was noisy, the ship's control systems constantly bleeping and beeping, like birdsong in a jungle. But today they were silent. The only sound was the faint throb of the massive engines, deep below the water line.

  What was going on? Amurao had spent two years as a deckhand on oil tankers and he'd never known one travel with the automatics off. Perhaps there had been a malfunction?

  He took his bucket to the control area and mopped around the big metal lever that rose from the floor like a giant gearshift; the two men moved their feet out of his way. They paid him no attention but talked to each other in low, urgent voices.

  Out of the window on his left Amurao could see the white coral beaches of an island. Green hills were studded with pink stuccoed houses and he recognized where they were – Curaçao, the largest of the ABC Islands or Netherlands Antilles, forty-four miles off the coast of South America. On their way to the offshore oil refinery at the other end of the island.

  Working his way around the room, he felt a change in the throbbing of the ship's engines. They were turning. He looked up. The captain was gripping the semicircular metal steering column that rose from the centre of the control panel, turning it hard left.

  Out of the window the view had changed. They had come a lot closer to the island.

  Amurao stopped mopping.

  The captain nodded at his colleague. His second-in-command grasped the big lever in the floor and pushed it forwards all the way. A buzzer sounded and the eight-cylinder engines far below responded like a huge jet. The propeller bit into the dark sea, driving the great ship on.

  On the radar screen, an amber bar swept around like a second hand, picking out the glowing outline of the coast. With each revolution the coastline was moving closer. A stopwatch counting down to disaster . . .

  1

  MAGIC WORLD

  The eel's jaws were big enough to encircle Li's entire body. As the creature yawned towards her in the water she glimpsed three vicious sets of teeth and two round eyes, orange and yellow psychedelic discs with inky black pupils. She could hear nothing but the rasp of her own breath in her aqualung and the steady rumble of bubbles as she exhaled through her regulator. The hideous prehistoric face lunged towards her in eerie silence, its jaws snapping open and shut like an alligator.

  Li tumbled out of the way and the eel slid harmlessly past, still snapping its jaws. It wasn't trying to attack her; this was how it breathed. She curled around in the water, lifted her video camera to her masked face and filmed it – the pointed, primitive face like a sea-going snake, bubbles escaping through small holes in its head. The body was nearly three metres long from pointed snout to arrow-like tail and as thick as a telegraph pole.

  Up above her on the surface was the Fathom Sprite, the eight-metre motorboat they had hired, tethered and flying a blue-and-white flag to show there were divers in the area. She and the four other members of Alpha Force had come to the Fathoms Dive Centre in Curaçao to train in advanced diving techniques. For now, their first afternoon, they were enjoying the island's coral reef and reminding themselves of the basic rules of diving.

  The coral reef was vast, an underwater cliff that stretched down for ever. It was far too deep to explore with basic scuba equipment, so rule number one was to make sure you knew how far down you'd gone. As Li swam around she kept a close eye on the dive computer on her wrist to check that she never went deeper than thirty metres. Later in the week, with different equipment and more training, she hoped they'd be able to go deeper.

  So far, though, there was so much to see that Li didn't feel shortchanged. Her Anglo-Chinese parents were naturalists and she had inherited their love of the natural world. She hung in front of the wall, the gentle current fanning her black hair out in a rippling flame behind her. 'Wall' somehow seemed the wrong word. It looked like a bluish, brownish rockery full of plants and weeds, but the coral was actually all made of living animals. She swept her torch over it and the muted colours became bushes of bright red, yellow and jewel-like purples. There were delicate white structures that looked like the vein structures of giant leaves. In between them all were pale ripples of hard corals like human brains. The textures looked so alien and beautiful she wanted to touch them, but some of them were poisonous. In any case, the whole reef was a conservation area and divers were forbidden to touch anything in case they upset the ecosystem.

  Diving this reef was like being a bird. She could hover, or move up and down effortlessly with a flick of her fins. With the endless deep blue below her, it was like dreams she'd had of being able to fly. A talented gymnast, martial artist and climber, Li adored anything that felt like defying gravity.

  Strange, though. It was no longer as quiet as it had been. As well as the gentle sound of her own breathing she could now hear a deep sort of rumbling sound, like very muffled thunder. She couldn't say when it had started, but she was sure it hadn't always been that loud.

  Li checked her luminous watch. They had been underwater for about ten minutes. Diving rule number two was to keep an eye on how long you'd been down because you didn't want to run out of air. But Li felt like she could spend for ever down there.

  All the time she had been keeping track of the others. They all carried torches so it was easy to see where they were. That was diving rule number three – don't go off on your own. You always had a dive-buddy to look out for you. Today, she had two – Paulo and Alex. Time to film them for a while, she thought.

  She picked Paulo out easily by his powerful build and dark wavy hair billowing up in a soft halo. He was above her, suspended in a ring of silvery fish, as though he had charmed them out of the reefs. He saw Li pointing the camera up at him and gave a big, theatrical flourish with his hand. The fish parted in a tunnel. He withdrew it again and they closed around him like a giant rotating lampshade.

  Typical Paulo, thought Li. He had grown up on a ranch in Argentina and was supremely confident with animals. Here he was, orchestrating the movements of at least two hundred fish. Any minute now he's going to give a big show-off grin and then his regulator will fall out of his mouth. Or he'll breathe through his nose. She made sure she got a close-up of his bouffant hair; that would make amusing viewing later.

  Alex had been watching. He swam past Li, his blond hair rippling around his face, and copied Paulo's flamboyant gesture. Li filmed him, knowing what no-nonsense Northumbrian Alex would be saying about Paulo if his dive equipment allowed him to speak: 'posing as usual'. As he swam off Li took a few quick frames of Alex's billowy hair too.

  Amber and Hex were easy to spot. Hex's fins were pale in the blue light, edged with black like a dangerous fish; Amber's were as black as her skin, making her already long legs impossibly sleek. They were swimming as a pair at ninety degrees to the coral wall, as though they had forgotten which way was up. Several fish seemed to have been fooled
too and were swimming along beside them. To anyone who knew them they would seem unlikely dive-buddies – Amber, a privileged rich girl from America, and Hex, a computer hacker from a rough part of London – but the two had clicked. Now they swam closer to the coral wall, changing direction in sync like a pair of seahorses, bubbles rising from their masked faces like thought clouds. Both had close-cropped short hair – no potential there, Li thought, for embarrassing underwater hairstyle videos.

  Amber poked Hex in the back as they swam along. He whirled in the water looking for his attacker, obviously imagining sharks. Amber hovered beside him, the tubes on her air tank quivering and bubbles shooting fast out of her regulator. So that was what someone looked like when they laughed in scuba gear, Li thought. Hex reached across to poke Amber in return and she scooted gracefully away. He gave chase. And still they swam as though the world had been turned on its side.